


Like To Think So

by VirginiaPendragon



Category: Queer as Folk (US) RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-12 11:17:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18009917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VirginiaPendragon/pseuds/VirginiaPendragon
Summary: Ok, so this wasn't meant to be this sickeningly sweet, but if I have to read it once more and try to make it better I swear I'm gonna scream, so I gotta post it and get it out of my system or it'll keep haunting me!





	Like To Think So

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: unsafe sex.
> 
> Header by 💜 https://kizome-yuri.livejournal.com/.

“ **Like** **To Think So** ”

  
  
  
All good things must come to an end, Gale thought.  
  
He was striving to remember why. Rather unsuccessfully, truth be told.  
  
The director called it a wrap on his last scene with Randy and the man's voice resonated in Gale's ears like a dull echo. Memories of the previous five years flashed in his head in a way that would have reminded him of "Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind" had he been less distracted, and came to a halt close to four years before, on a lazy, obnoxiously hot day in late August, when Gale was bored out of his mind.  
  
  
'Cut!'  
  
Gale's hand firm on Randy's neck kept the boy in place while he went on kissing him.  
  
Despite being pretty fucking confident about his reading skills, Randy mentally scanned the script, wondering whether he might have missed the line where Brian was supposed to suck face with Justin like that. Deciding such a line had simply never been there, he finally pulled back and, when he did, Gale couldn't but find it adorable. The flushing, mixed with the deer-in-the-headlights look his co-star was sporting, even though they challenged his resolution to stay serious.  
  
That, and the amused coughs from the crew.  
  
Not that they did not know. Gale and Randy were perfectly aware that it had taken them less than six months to create a true rumor mill.  
  
Usually, and more or less consciously, they would prophetically blame it on the _conventionality of most people's thinking_ ; but not that time.  
  
'What the fuck was that?!' Randy snapped. The fact that the he was trying to yell at Gale in a whisper only made the older man bite his lip harder to stifle a laugh.  
  
'Shhh, let's give them something pseudo-real to gossip about for once. Just play the game.' Gale said before kissing a more compliant Randy again.  
  
Coughs gave way to a disbelieving silence where mouths could almost be heard dropping. Then Gale broke the kiss, took Randy by the hand and dragged him out of the 'Prom set' and into his own trailer, where they surrendered to fits of laughter and complimented each other on the little show to which they had just treated their co-workers.  
  
There and then, Randy was definitely not afraid of losing his _friend_ Gale; he only hated the idea that he would never lose him as such.  
  
Just a little bit.  
  
*********************************  
  
Coming back to the present, Gale let out a barely audible sigh.  
  
'Gale, are you ok? You look...sick?' The questioning note in Randy's statement made it clear that he had not bothered looking for a better word and that he expected more than Gale would probably be willing to reveal.  
  
'I'm fine, just a tad tired...It's ok.' He smiled weakly, hoping Randy would leave him alone; without actually leaving, that is.  
  
Randy obviously did not buy it; he sensed there was more than being 'just a tad tired' behind the older man's restlessness, but he knew full well when Gale did not need him to push. He simply returned the slight smile.  
  
'So, Mr Kinney's finally getting rid of _'the trick that wouldn't leave'_ , uh?' He quipped.  
  
'I hope not...' Gale seemed to be on the point of adding something else, but he fixed a blank stare on the bed of the loft, instead.  
  
'What, are you experiencing Brian's possession withdrawal?!' He elbowed Gale's hip. And his heart with that wry smile.  
  
Even if Gale had wanted to glare at Randy for the lame joke, the dazzling sweetness in the younger man's eyes put him off. 'Yeah, kinda.' He loosely admitted.  
  
Only, it was another sort of withdrawal.  
  
*********************************  
  
_"...and it stings when it's nobody's fault  
'cause there's nothing to blame at the drop of your name  
it's only the air you took and the breath you left..."_  
  
*********************************  
  
A not-so-ordinary day, what felt like five centuries ago, Gale was sitting around a large oval black table with Peter, Hal, Ron and Daniel, when Randy entered the conference room to be introduced to more of his co-stars. The teenage-looking actor greeted his soon to be on-screen lover with a firm shake of his hand and a toned down version of that infamous smile which was going to earn him his eternal nickname on the show.  
  
And there they were, five seasons later and less than two months past the ultimate end of filming, Gale holding a sobbing blond bundle.  
  
'What the fuck am I, some three-year-old on his first day of kindergarten?!' Randy groaned against the older man's shoulder, then he laughed nervously, pulling away to rub at his eyes, in that adorably sheepish way he sometimes did when he screwed up a scene.  
  
He was not one to put on a tough image, to hide his feelings even when he knew it would have been more than understandable for him to want to, but, at that very moment, he hated himself for putting them on display like that. It was not that his co-workers had never seen him get...emotional, but this time was not about being emotional. It was different, not on account of an intention to give way to some maudlin mood and let himself be lulled in wistful memories.  
  
The whole cast, the producers and some members of the crew had gathered for the taping of a group commentary on season five, which was supposed to end up as an extra feature on the forthcoming DVD set. It was also the last obligation the "Queer As Folk" actors were called to meet according to their contracts. Funny how someone found themselves wishing they could actually see it as an _obligation_.  
  
In the twinkling of an eye, Gale and Randy were alone in the room.  
  
Gale kept stroking Randy's back soothingly, then backed away a few inches, his arms lingering around Randy's waist, thumbs brushing the younger man's hips. A sad smile faded away from Gale's face as rapidly as it had materialized, unseen by Randy, whom he pulled to himself again. He placed a soft kiss on the blond's head.  
  
'This is for the best.' Gale was trying to convince himself as much as Randy that sticking to the only rule of their arrangement - turn the page once the show is over - was the right thing to do. Not trusting his voice for anything more than a sarcastic response, Randy simply nodded. 'We'll be alright. Hell, in a couple of months you'll be wondering why you wasted so much time with me when you could have had half of gay and not-so-gay Hollywood!' Gale laughed humorlessly, in a pathetic attempt at lightening the mood.  
  
'Hey, don't sell me short. Why just half of it?' There was a flash of Justin's best smug expression on his face, before it softened into a wrinkling nose and a sad smile. By contrast, Randy's grip on Gale unconsciously tightened. 'Never. No regrets when it comes to us. Brian might be full of shit, but I'm serious.'  
  
Three months prior, Randy had been startled by his own reaction to the end of filming. He had been both anticipating and fearing that day for weeks and the fact that all he had felt was dangerously close to a prickling numbness, when the day had finally come, had aroused something approaching a guilty feeling at first; which genuinely surprised him, because he did not have some people's tendency to develop ungrounded guilty feelings. He had later brought himself to the conclusion that he had only been trying to delay the moment when the realization of what was happening would dawn on him. When he would be willing to let the idea that his whatever-it-was with Gale was over sink in.  
  
Granted, one can even get over death in time, let alone a broken heart, but the burden you find yourself carrying gets slightly heavier after each blow, just so that your heart misses one beat too many at every step of the way.  
  
Especially if you are the one who agreed to trash it.  
  
*********************************  
  
_"...One hand on the trigger of the telephone  
Wondering when the call comes  
When you say it's alright  
You got your heart right..."_  
  
*********************************  
  
Nine months after the end of shooting, Gale was sitting Indian-style on the carpeted floor of his Toronto apartment, which he had decided to keep without giving the opposite option much thought. He was there on a long overdue vacation, after six months spent between filming a new indie movie in Ohio and arguing with his now ex-girlfriend over the actual necessity of keeping four Italian motorbikes, shacking up and hell if he even wanted to make an effort to remember.  
  
What he did remember, though, was why he had decided to break up with her. Maybe it wasn't even her fault, maybe it was just an excuse, but, with her, Gale often felt as if his feelings always had to be 'on a hype', like in movies and novels. Intense at all cost. He, on the contrary, loved playing drama on tv and the big screen, but, in everyday life, needed to know that it was ok not to be on a constant adrenaline rush. He needed to know that he could even afford being plain for a day or two if he damn well felt like it!  
  
That's why he had genuinely adored and was missing spending time with Randy beyond reason. Because Randy could see a raw love for life in Gale's eyes even when they were not doing anything special, like sipping a beer on a scaffolding during a break from filming, silent in the drowsy buzz of an unusually hot spring day. Even with sweat burning at the corners of his eyes, making his sight painfully blurry, Gale could feel a refreshing wave of peace rippling inside of him. In Randy's company, he felt like being ordinary was not necessarily a bad thing, even though, in Randy's eyes, he was anything but ordinary.  
  
Randy, too, relished moments like that, because they felt like a fuzzy, warm prelude to those other times when Gale would pleasantly surprise him; because there was no way Randy would ever get used to Gale dragging him out of his apartment for an impromptu road trip on a weekend they had off from work. Randy would produce a dozen masterfully argued reasons why it was not advisable to take off in the middle of the night, without having booked a room - not even in a lousy motel - and, more importantly, with no more than a backpack as luggage. But Gale was not one to be deterred and Randy only teased him because of how sweetly passionate he got, all worked up in his new found adventure mood.  
  
That's how, without much of an effort, actually, Randy had led Gale to bump into the epiphany that having always been with women and having never felt desire of a sexual nature for a person of his own sex did not necessarily mark him as straight. Because if kissing men was not as tough for Gale as it was for Hal, kissing Randy did not even come close to the slight uneasiness he experienced with Brian's tricks. 'Being with' Randy on screen had certainly been something _'new and different'_ , yet so natural that it seemed hard to remember a day when their bodies had not found their way to one another, even if only for some ruffling of hair or a pinch on a forearm.  
  
And, God, did he miss all that.  
  
So, honestly, bumping into that realization had not hurt at all, because, come to think of it, it had been more of a gradual process than a sudden epiphany. An imperceptible crawling of Randy under Gale's skin. Sometimes the thought that most male friends were usually not as touchy-feely as they were would brush Gale's mind, because, not being a hermit, he would occasionally catch himself wondering where he stood amidst the _madding crowd_ of society, but, on second thought, he would also realize he did not really care, because this 'Gale and Randy thing' did not feel wrong or right. Just...good. Overwhelmingly so. And it was not a matter of being afraid to get trapped in a cliché, because he had seriously given it some thought and contemplated the possibilty that maybe there was no such thing as a cliché, at least not when it comes to _feeling_.  
  
It was simply a matter of being true to himself and wondering what the point in over-analysing it would have been. _You don't want to question how healthy a hot dog bought on a street corner is while you're freezing your nuts off on a sharp November day, do you?_  
  
  
Gale pulled away from the havana brown sofa to scratch his back. He was absent-mindedly flipping through cable channels, a once chilled beer in his left hand, when he came across a Showcase re-run of "Queer As Folk".  
  
Season 3, episode 8.  
  
Ah. The irony of tv schedules.  
  
  
_'It's so like you! You don't hear what you want, so you leave. Try standing up for yourself for a change. Have some balls!'_  
  
They had tried to film that damn scene at least twenty times that day, until Bruce McDonald, exasperated by thin walls cracking up under Gale's weight - eliciting an identical reaction from Gale and Randy and the whole crew - had given up and called it a day.  
  
The shooting had been rescheduled for the following day. Needless to say, heated kisses against cardboard walls were not an option anymore.  
  
Gale delivered his line in what sounded to him as slow motion, then waited for _Justin_ 's reaction. Randy's lips crushed against Gale's, but he did not taste Justin's longing for Brian there. He tasted pain, rage and fatigue.  
  
And they were none other than Randy's.  
  
The rush of blood to Gale's head left his head within a hair's breadth of spinning; just in time, the compliments he received from McDonald jerked him out of his wonder. Judging by Bruce's words, that had to be exactly the reaction the director had pictured in his head for Brian. The way he had rolled his lower lip inside his mouth and ever so slowly let it roll back out, just to taste the kiss, taste Justin - for one more desperate second. But the unusual falter in those hazel orbs had spoken volumes.  
  
Because it did not belong to Brian Kinney alone.  
  
Boyfriends and girlfriends had waltzed into and out of Gale and Randy's lives, but no Julian had ever dared invading the alternate universe where they were Brian and Justin. So, all of a sudden, Gale felt their special thing, that safe, comforting blurring of opposite edges that made them..,well, _them_ , not enough anymore.  
  
Funny how shortly after the rumor mill had stopped heaving a waterfall of possessiveness had washed over him.  
  
*********************************  
  
One anonymous night, during hiatus between season three and four, Gale's phone in his Atlanta residence rang. 'Hello?'  
  
'Hi Gale! It's me. Where are you?'  
  
'Duh. You called me. Where do you think I am?'  
  
'Do you have plans for tonight?'  
  
'What are you on?!'  
  
'Funny. Can I come over?'  
  
'Ok, now you're scaring me.'  
  
'Damn, you idiot, I'm outside your bloody yard!! Can I come in?!'  
  
*********************************  
  
A flabbergasted Gale opened the door to let Randy in.  
  
Randy breathed in the unique scent of a place he had only been in twice, but with which he had grown easily familiar.  
  
'Randy, what's wrong?' Gale asked, closing the door behind the two of them, not before suspiciously peering out in the dark. He was already seven minutes into pondering whether one of Randy's personal stalkers had decided to keep him company all the way from the Big Apple or if he was experiencing a pot-induced hallucination of his own.  
  
'Why, can't I drop by to say hi?' Randy replied, as if he had just said the most obvious thing in the world, and gracefully made his way in.  
  
'Do you call coming all the way from New York 'dropping by to say hi'?!' Gale narrowed his eyes, as if trying to infer whether maybe it was Randy who was acting under the blissful spell of weed.  
  
'Don't flatter yourself. I was already here, you know, visiting, um, a few friends.' He lied.  
  
'Oh. 'k.' A dumb look was still planted on Gale's face.  
  
Randy - not so gracefully this time - slouched on an armchair in the living room, then practically shoved Gale onto the couch nearby with his left foot.  
  
*********************************  
  
'...and then I dumped the bastard.' Randy slurred the last three words, raising the heavy glass in triumph.  
  
'Good for you. I guess.' Afraid to say more than he wanted to, Gale hit Randy's glass with his bottle of beer for a toast and smiled almost as idiotic smile as Randy's.  
  
Randy looked at his watch. Three a.m. 'I better go now.' He yawned, stretching his limbs and not covering his mouth in a way that Gale would have found almost grotesque on anyone else, but which looked painfully endearing on Randy, who got up on legs made wobbly from definitely one too many.  
  
'Um... Rands?' It came out husky and thick, the way Gale usually voiced deeply pondered thoughts. And half-drunken pleas just as well.  
  
'Yes?'  
  
'Stay.'  
  
*********************************  
  
Gale searched Randy's darkened eyes for a hint of what to do. He reached for Randy's hand, pulled him down and the younger man found himself all too willingly sitting on Gale's lap.  
  
Randy giggled.  
  
Growing more confident with Randy showing no resistance whatsoever, Gale slid his hands under Randy's t-shirt and gently lay him down on the pillow-covered floor. He started to kiss him, unlike any of those countless variations on the theme they had shared in the past, rather in some sort of intoxicated yet oversensitive half-awareness. When the blond moaned into his mouth, Gale took it as a chance to reluctantly break the kiss and pull Randy's sweater off. For a long moment, he contemplated the younger man's ephebic glory.  
  
Gale gave Randy one of those looks. A 'Right here, right now, I could seriously consider spending the rest of my life with you' sort of look.  
  
Randy's hand sensually made its way from the nape of Gale's neck up to and through his hair, as the older man leaned down to place feathery kisses on Randy's stomach. Gale's fingers traced the length of Randy's sides and went on to move the boy's arms above their heads. He kissed him again, slowly - excruciatingly so - until the need for air became pressing; he then nuzzled the ivory of Randy's throat, lifted in ecstasy under Gale's breath, and started grinding their groins together.  
  
'Oh God...Cut it out!' Randy panted after a good two minutes of such delicious torture.  
  
A confused 'Uh?' was the most eloquent thing Gale managed to mutter in between the lovebites with which he was profusely gracing the younger man's neck. When the words finally knocked at his brain, blissed tipsiness gave way to the fear of second thoughts on Randy's part and he lifted his head to face the music straight from the blue eyes.  
  
'I said cut it out! Do you want me to cum in my pants like a horny teenager?!' Randy sounded unwavering.  
  
But he let out another tipsy giggle and Gale relaxed again. 'You don't look much older than that, you know, and if your name is any indication of your nature...' He smirked, brushing a lock off of Randy's forehead.  
  
'Mm-hmm. Then I guess I should leave. You don't want to take advantage of a drunk minor, now, do you?' Randy made a pretence of wanting to get up, but Gale grabbed Randy's crotch and gave it a squeeze. Randy gasped a 'You evil shit!', but, when Gale grinned devilishly, he got tired of his own little game. 'Oh, fuck it!'. He drawled before claiming the older man's mouth in a demanding kiss.  
  
Two pairs of deliciously warm and swollen lips later, Gale stood up, pulling Randy with him and lifting him up until Randy's arms were loose around Gale's neck and his legs just as steadily wrapped around the older man's waist. While Gale led them to his bedroom, Randy kept sucking on the man's neck and occasionally rubbed himself against Gale's stomach.  
  
In between increasingly loud groans, Randy hit the mattress, enjoying the feeling of Gale's weight on him before the older man pulled up a little. The action allowed Randy to start working on the buttons of Gale's shirt, while Gale made himself busy with the zipper of Randy's jeans, their movements tentative and messy all of a sudden.  
  
When both were free from clothes, Gale leaned in again to first lick along Randy's lower lip and then take turns to suck on it and the upper one. They kept making out a little longer, until Gale stopped again. This time, it was Randy who sensed some sort of hesitation on Gale's part, but, contrary to Gale earlier, he knew exactly where it sprang from, so he felt the urge to reassure the other man. 'Don't stop... If you're sure this is what you want, too, that is.'  
  
'God yes. Do you think we should... I mean... Nevermind.'  
  
'What? Tell me.' Randy's voice firm but sweet in his request.  
  
Gale exhaled slowly. 'Do you..', he coughed, '..want me to, um, use a condom?' He almost winced, wishing he could think of a better way to ask something like that.  
  
Randy blinked a few times, genuinely taken aback by that question. He silently shook his head, smiling slightly. Gale looked deep into Randy's eyes and hoped he did not misread what he saw there. An unhoped for and all the more disarming trust.  
  
Not wanting to question what he had done to deserve it, Gale forced his heavy-lidded eyes open while he entered Randy's tight yet willing body. The overwhelming rise of temperature quickly had Gale's forehead beaded with a thin veil of sweat, which Randy kept kissing and alternately panting against, the ineffable feeling of Gale sliding in and out of him more than once causing him to forget how to breathe.  
  
The fog in Randy's mind seemed to start dispelling as soon as he sensed his and Gale's orgasms approaching. He let his hands glide down Gale's shoulder, stopping here and there to grope the slick flesh and, by the time he cupped Gale's tense buttocks, their chests were deliciously warmed by Randy's cum. Gale's release followed shortly, with him flooding Randy's inside and collapsing blissfully over the smaller man.  
  
Randy nearly trembled with pleasure at the feeling of Gale's semen oozing down his inner thighs in warm trickles and pressed his hands on the small of Gale's back lightly to let the older man know he was not ready to lose the amazing fullness he was experiencing with his lover still inside of himself just yet. Gale was all too happy to comply with Randy's wish. With fingers threaded through one another's damp mane, they exchanged clumsy kisses and laboured breaths until sleep decided to take a toll on the tangle of limbs they had become.  
  
*********************************  
  
_"...All you need is love is a lie 'cause  
We had love but we still said goodbye  
Now we're tired, battered fighters..."_  
  
*********************************  
  
Randy was tracing circles on the wooden floor of his New York studio on a swivel chair; for the last hour, he had been trying - and systematically failing - to come up with some brilliant line for a play he was writing, but, for the life of him, he could not seem to put on paper a sentence that would not sound hatefully trite or simply not the combination of words his thoughts needed to take their inky shape.  
  
Even almost a year after that fatal day of the group commentary, he sometimes could not help dwelling unpleasantly on the queasy feeling you get when you know you did _the right thing_ , just not the one that is right for you.  
  
And the only fact his mind seemed to be able to wrap around, in a way which was dangerously winking at obsession, were vivid memories of more there-and-thens.  
  
*********************************  
  
Randy. Asleep. Feet resting on Gale's lap, after a little pot-fest they had started three hours earlier.  
  
Gale's upper body was trapped in an odd posture that he would make sure to blame for his backache the morning after. However, not wanting to even try and wake up his stoned friend, he managed to find a decent position to try and doze off himself.  
  
He woke up to a still sleeping Randy's foot rubbing against his jean-clad crotch. He slowly woke up to Gale's strong hand caressing his blond cascade of bangs sprawled on the pillow; sleepy eyes shadowed with indigo opened and focused on the spellbound stare that Gale was casting on him.  
  
'Morning.' Randy mumbled, one wide eye shut again and the other barely open. He smiled at the sweet sting in his lower back before lazily getting his legs off Gale and standing up with a yawn. Gale took advantage of that to stretch himself over the warmth Randy had left and every now and then a sound remotely resembling a whimper would escape his mouth. Randy, faking exasperation, took pity on Gale and offered to give him a massage.  
  
The younger man crawled on the tall figure spread over the length of the couch and sat on the back of Gale's knees to start his ministrations on the sore back.  
  
'Ouch.' Of course, Gale knew and couldn't care less that after Randy was done with him, his back would probably hurt even more. Because Randy was a terrible masseur.  
  
'Come on, I'm not that bad.' Randy defended himself.  
  
'Says the man who gave me food-poisoning with that French shit he tried to cook three weeks ago.' Gale smirked. _'Cue the spanking'_ , he thought.  
  
Predictably, Randy spanked Gale's butt. Gale turned his head and very Brianesquely glared at him. 'It's part of the therapy.' His attempts at sounding serious poorly collapsed under a chuckle.  
  
'Really? It's not like I didn't know.' Gale grinned against his forearms, then rolled over, squeezing Randy, whose squeals would have put Summer on "The O.C." to shame, against the back of the sofa in the process. He turned around and pressed his still smiling lips on Randy's.  
  
'Looks like someone could use a hand.' Randy mumbled in between the kisses, sliding his left hand down Gale's pants.  
  
'That makes two of us.' Gale said, pressing his left knee against Randy's crotch.  
  
*********************************  
  
Gale was not depressed.  
  
He was utterly exhausted.  
  
Was this what the Wildean persuasion meant that finally obtaining what you had always wanted was one of the two tragedies of life? Gale had not let quicksand of desperation pull him in, but he still had the decency of admitting, if only to himself, that trading depression for emotional numbness, as he had somehow managed to do, was physically draining. Even more so considering he had done his best not to shut Randy completely out of his life and keep in touch with him, at least by phone or e-mail. They owed that much to one another.  
  
But he was tired of being tired.  
  
Having accepted an invitation from an old friend for a New Year's Eve party in Boston, Gale decided to go and get ready. Two hours later, he was leaning against the the ebony black banisters of the wide terrace at Patrick's, his elbows propped on it while smoking a cigarette. Looking out at the unfamiliar sky, he could not help smiling a sad smile of full awareness at the memory of exactly one year earlier.  
  
*********************************  
  
_"...so I'll check the weather wherever you are  
'cause I wanna know if you can see the stars tonight  
It might be my only right..."_  
  
*********************************  
  
Randy had left Toronto three days before Christmas to visit his family and so had Gale, who had ended up spending New Year's Eve at a cousin's with some old friends. All in all, he was having a good time and doing a remarkable job at getting shitfaced, but when the initial euphoria began to fade out, he felt the need for some fresh air and found himself sitting on a step on the porch, growing nostalgic by the minute. Wishing Randy there with him, he fumbled for his cell phone to be ready to call him when midnight struck. Decidedly, the biting December air was not working its magic to bring him out of his fog as well as he had expected, because now he could almost feel Randy's lean but strong arms wrapping around his waist, Randy's hands slipping under his shirt, Randy's lips on his neck, Randy's breath...  
  
'Randy?!?'  
  
'Happy New Year!' Randy grinned widely when a shocked Gale turned around.  
  
'You're... What... I thought...'  
  
Yeah, he was eloquent like that.  
  
But under an oddly greenish moonlight, Randy found Gale couldn't have looked more devastatingly beautiful, thanks in no small part to his evident confusion.  
  
Randy straddled Gale's lap and cupped Gale's face with both hands to invade his mouth with a breathtaking kiss. Randy's labored breath warmed the older man's face and Gale's hands languidly slipped around the younger man's neck. His eyelids were closed against Randy's forehead. 'God, I want you.' Gale groaned.  
  
'Then have me.' Randy replied, as calmly and disarmingly as if, again, he had just suggested the most obvious thing in the world. _'My little teasing shit!'_ , Gale thought with a laugh.  
  
And fuck if he didn't.  
  
Gale took Randy to his car and they fucked on the backseat, all heads bumping and silly giggles and mistletoe mysteriously stuck to their sweaters.  
  
Both their wishes were unceremoniously sacrificed on praying not to get caught.  
  
*********************************  
  
_"...And I know it was me who called it over but  
I still wish you'd fought me till your dying day  
Don't let me get away  
'cause I can't wait to figure out what's wrong with me  
So I can say this is the way that I used to be..."_  
  
*********************************  
  
Gale hadn't talked to Randy on the phone for four months when the younger man called him to talk about the photoshoot. Brian and Justin were in the top ten of the All Time Best Couple in a TV Series, according to the survey of a new magazine. Surprisingly - and rather masochistically - enough, both of them had agreed to go with it.  
  
Wrapped up in Gale's arms, for one of the final poses, Randy could not lie to himself that he did not miss it. This overwhelming intimacy which, more often than not, would raise questions rather than give answers, but still make him want to always find his way back to it. Back to Gale.  
  
'Missed you.' Gale whispered against the nape of Randy's neck, covered once again by long locks, in between two snaps requiring different angles and lighting.  
  
Randy said nothing, but Gale could feel the rise in the blond's heartbeat, his right arm being draped across Randy's shoulder so that his hand was open wide on the younger man's chest, right above his heart. 'Gale, just don't.' Randy warned him.  
  
'Randy I know I was the one to, well, fuck this up in the first place, but--'  
  
'--but I didn't stop you, so we can share the blame. I know.'  
  
'That's not what I was going to say.'  
  
'Then what was it?'  
  
'Is there any chance that you still feel the same about me...about us?' Randy felt Gale's grip tighten out of an unconditioned reflex, preventing him from turning around to face the taller man.  
  
'Gale I... I'm kind of seeing someone.'  
  
'Kind of.'  
  
'Yeah, well, we've only been dating for a few weeks. What about you and Julie?'  
  
'It's over. It was over even before it started, I guess. So, should I take that as a 'no' to my question?'  
  
'Yes.. No.. Fuck.'  
  
Randy was about to get out of Gale's embrace when the photographer's voice forced him to keep their positions. 'Guys, are you ready? A few more snaps and we'll be done.' After a barely audible sigh, Randy managed to get through the rest of the photoshoot. As soon as it was over, he hurried to his changing room, followed by Gale, who promptly closed the door behind himself once inside.  
  
'Randy?'  
  
'What the fuck do you want me to say?!' Randy nearly shrieked, running a nervous hand through his hair.  
  
'Yes?'  
  
'Yes, Gale. Yes, ok? It wasn't supposed to happen but I'm still fucking hopelessly in love with you!! Are you happy now?!' He opened his arms in defeat, mere exasperation and weariness exuding from his words.  
  
When a smile crept up Gale's face, Randy contemplated slapping it off the - sigh - oh so beautiful face, but he stood dead in his tracks for what felt like days when Gale's voice reached him and he perceived his tone as unmistakably serious. 'Marry me.'  
  
*********************************  
  
Straddling Gale's thighs, 'What are you reading?' he asked, sneaking up from behind Gale's coverless book.  
  
'A biography of Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas.'  
  
'Mmm. Read me something. Go on from where you stopped.'  
  
_'...You are more to me than any of them has any idea; you are the atmosphere of beauty through which I see life; you are the incarnation of all lovely things. When we are out of tune, all colour goes away from things for me, but we are never really out of tune. I think of you day and night...'_ Gale stopped reading, smiled and licked his lips sheepishly. He covered Randy's lips with his open mouth for a long, sensual, wet kiss.  
  
'Wow.' Randy panted.  
  
'Yeah.' Gale agreed. He closed his eyes, the book mercilessly discarded on the floor.  
  
Not seeing but sensing the smile on Gale's face, Randy's head suddenly jerked up from where it was resting on the older man's chest. 'What are you thinking about?'  
  
'When I told that boyfriend of yours, "Hey, dude, do you mind if I borrow your boyfriend and fuck his brains out for...ever?", and practically kidnapped you.' That day, five years earlier, seconds after leaving the poor guy standing dumbfounded on the treshold of Randy's hotel room, Gale had blushed despite himself; Randy's stomach, on the contrary, had felt as if Tolkienian battle were taking place in it at the implication of the blunt joke. He had to stop re-reading "The Lord of the Rings", he scolded himself.  
  
That was one of the things he had come to love the most about Gale, the way the man could say the rudest thing and have it sound knee-weakeningly sweet, at least in his ears.  
  
'Yeah, how romantic of you! Somehow, somewhere down the line, you must have inherited some Kinney genes.' Randy almost sing-songed and Gale pushed playfully at the blond's chest, whose laugh reached his eyes and betrayed the sheer adoration he felt for his lover.  
  
'And here I thought from your "Aahh, Gale, fuck me...mmm, harder"s that you liked me rough!' Gale replied in mock testiness.  
  
Randy rolled his eyes theatrically and threw the pillow he was sitting on to Gale to distract him from his own blushing. 'Touché.' He conceeded. 'Seriously, though, what if I'd actually accepted your proposal?'  
  
'We'd have been walking down the aisle in matching Vera Wangs?' Gale quipped.  
  
'Lucky for you I'm no Justin Taylor.'  
  
Gale opened his mouth but had no time to reply to that statement with a sarcastic remark, only because Randy leaned in, close to his left ear, and whispered, 'Say what I know you were about to and Mike Tyson will have nothing on me.'. He then gave the lobe a little playful lick, started to suck on it. 'Mmm...On second thought, if this is what I get out of..mmm...you not being a cornball, I..mm..freaking love it!' Randy giggled and Gale thought he would possibly never get tired of that sound. Then he paused, suddenly serious, and kissed Gale's eyelid. 'Come to think of it, I kinda don't mind _you_ , either.' He winked.  
  
'Gee, thanks!' Gale paused. 'And I love you.', he added lightly, but in total seriousness.  
  
'Man, we're so screwed!' Randy laughed and hid his head into Gale's shoulder.  
  
'No shit! But, for once, two wrongs make it alright, don't they?' Gale said, and his eyes sparkled with a liquid glow that made Randy's heart swell as soon as he raised his head.  
  
Randy smiled at the surprising eloquence of unspoken things. The most blindingly sweet smile Gale had ever seen. 'I like to think so.'  
  


**The End**

**Author's Note:**

> All 'paragraph quotes' are from "Split Screen Sadness" by John Mayer.


End file.
